


dedication

by CurryJolokia (capra)



Category: GARO (TV), GARO: Makai Senki
Genre: Multi, baby polycule just starting out, toku poly 2019
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-23
Updated: 2019-06-23
Packaged: 2020-05-16 22:32:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19327429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/capra/pseuds/CurryJolokia
Summary: Rei and Leo fit into Kaoru and Kouga's lives. But what, exactly, is the nature of that fit?Or: Polycules are not necessarily composed of equilateral angles, but all the lines do connect, in one way or another.





	dedication

**Author's Note:**

  * For [VaguelyDownwards](https://archiveofourown.org/users/VaguelyDownwards/gifts).



> heLLO my dear recipient!!! I really hope you like this absolutely all-in-my-feels mess of rei and leo Feelings and Inner Monologue except Not Quite. it's a little bit of a mess, but so are they, so i really hope this 'works' for you.
> 
> i apologize for the truly appalling lack of gratuitous coat description (TM) in this fic, it's a personal failing i'll seek to correct in the future

*  
 _rei_

*

Near the beginning, Rei thinks the best label for what he is to them would be "spare parts."

It's not a charitable view, he knows that, but he hasn't given them a lot of reason to think charitably of him. Talk about bad first impressions! He thinks that if you challenged him, he probably could have done worse, a bit at least, but he would have had to  _really_ be trying.

Yes, he assisted with bringing the Varrancas fruit back from the Crimson Forest to save Kaoru - kind of. He helped Kouga get to the point where he could do it himself, really. But Kaoru, at some point after all that, had thanked him for not killing her when he'd had the chance, giving them enough time to find the fruit and save her. Rei wasn't really sure why the hell she was thanking him - had she completely forgotten the time he struck his swords against the alley walls like steel on flint, intimidating her with sparks and his own prowl, as he closed in on her to kill?  _No, I haven't forgotten_ , she answered him.  _But looking back, I can tell you really didn't want to do it, or you wouldn't have dragged it out and been so dramatic about it._

She was obnoxious that way.

And yes, alright, Kouga, that idiot, would have been pretty much doomed without Rei's help when he decided to let the armour eat him. It was a stupid move, no matter how deep his rage was at that moment. Rei is glad he managed, somehow, to make it in time. To snark his way into distracting Kouga enough that he let go of him; to stab the armour's emblem hard enough to shatter it and force it to revert. It was a lot of dumb luck, really, but between luck and effort he got the job done. Kouga wasn't lost, and the line of Garo wasn't lost either.

Helping with Barago, well, they don't owe him a damn thing for that. That was personal, for Shizuka's sake, for the sake of his lost name and his lost happiness, for the loss of the peaceful sylvan life he had planned for himself. They had their motives; he had his. It was an entirely selfish thing.

Once Barago was gone, though, he could have stopped. He knows that. But at that point, why leave the job unfinished? Kaoru had trusted that bastard, trusted him for years, and he'd been manipulating her for her entire life. It wasn't Rei's place to make up for that, obviously, but he could at least watch Kouga's back while Kouga did what he had to do, in the true demon realm, to get Barago's stain off of the girl. Kouga had stuck his neck out for him, after all, to the Western Watchdog; that bastard had been planning on keeping Rei there, denying him his vengeance on Barago, just because of a few broken rules. Stupid rules that deserved breaking, anyway, not that the Watchdog would ever see the reason of that. 

If he's honest with himself, Rei knows that Barago would have still died, whether by Kouga's hand or Messiah's, whether or not Rei was there. But what the Watchdog didn't understand, and probably never could understand, was that it was important to  _be_  there. Rei fought the fused Eastern Watchdogs, Glum, and that gave Kouga the freedom to fight Barago. Then, to fight Messiah. Then, to rescue Kaoru. Rei made a difference by being there. And Rei was  _part_  of it, of bringing three families' generations of pain to an end. Barago died, and with his death the injustices of the Suzumura, Saejima, and Mitsuki families were paid back, just a little.

Anyway, Rei was there, and he was only  _able_  to be there because Kouga put his neck out for him. So Rei wasn't going to stop with the job half-done. And when he saw Kaoru in Kouga's arms, weak and exhausted and  _herself_ again, he'd felt a stab of satisfaction so strong that it confused him a little bit. He was just glad she was safe, probably. And that Kouga wouldn't have to go through what Rei himself did, when he lost Shizuka. Rei wasn't up for fighting Lost Soul Beast Garo twice in one day. So Kaoru stayed safe, and Kouga didn't make any more dumb decisions, and Rei was satisfied with that.

Except for the next day, when Kaoru, barely out of bed from exhaustion but perky all the same, wrapped up in bundled blanket in her chair in front of her canvas, cheerily asked him to bend down close enough for a whisper - and kissed him instead. 

And except for when Gonza told him that his clothes and his coat had been cleaned and were hanging in  _his_  room, and would he please tell Gonza about all allergies he has, and all foods he prefers not to eat, and all his favorite foods as well, so Gonza can begin integrating his preferences into the kitchen's capabilities.

And when Kouga brought Rei and Silva to the portal of his training room and introduced Silva to the Madogu embedded in the door, telling it to let her and her knight in whenever he felt the need.  


 

By that point, Rei was pretty certain he'd missed something pretty big.

*  
 _leo_

*

  
At the beginning, Leo followed his duty. 

Well, that was a lie. At the beginning, and since before the beginning of his service as Kouga's Priest, Leo's been serving his  _own_  duty. Sigma: the spectre of him was a weighty obligation on Leo's shoulders. A duty to make right his brother's sins, and for as long as he could remember, that was all there was in his life. Of course he remembered his -  _their_  - childhood, and how it had been before. But those memories seemed too brightly colored in his mind's eye, like pictures pulled from a children's storybook. Carefree days that had been lived out by someone else. Someone not him.

But at the  _beginning_ , which is to say, after the end of it all - after Sigma, and Goki, and more blood shed, more guilt shared than Leo had ever meant to be shared - at the end of it all, was a beginning. And Leo, distracted by the moral quandary of Jabi's existence, didn't notice when that beginning first sprouted its roots.

He  _did_ notice eventually - not long after, but still almost too late. In the darkened starless night cast by the priests' brushes, the only light that illuminated their faces was the golden glow of Garo's Soul Metal. In that moment, as they basked in its reassuring radiance one last time, and offered him their silent support and prayers in return, the reality of it sunk in as it never had before. They all believed in Garo - not just in the strength of the armour, but in the strength of the man who wore it. He had defeated impossible foes before, almost too many to number. Leo knew what Kouga was capable of, and knew the importance of believing in him - not just with his words but with his heart. 

But this was  _The Promised Land_. This was going to be harder than anything before.

Leo stood behind Kouga's right shoulder, studying the gleam of the armour's sloping curves across Kouga's shoulder and nape. Tracing the sacred inscriptions carved into the metal with his gaze, Leo held his breath and refused to allow himself the thought that hovered near: This could be the last time that any of them looked upon Garo. This could be the last time that he saw Saejima Kouga in this world. 

That moment, the 'beginning' that Leo had not noticed taking root burst suddenly into bloom, and its thorns pierced deep through his heart.  Where other battles had felt improbable, this one seemed impossible. Leo was no more capable than any of the rest to help Kouga bear this, or to survive it. And, helplessly, he found himself thinking of Kaoru, too. Of the fear and pain she'd feel, only hours from now, when Kouga told her what the six surrounding him already knew.

But unlike Leo, Kaoru would be able to do something to help Kouga in this trial. Kaoru's love, already proven to transcend boundaries both godly and evil, would go with Kouga where none of the others could follow. His love for her would empower him, gilding his heart as surely as the armour gilded his body.

Leo thought again of the last fight, and the archery volley that brought their enemy down. It had been a perfect fusion of the power of priests and knights - a honed, perfected form of the duality that he had carried in himself in secret for so many years. Its strength; its resourcefulness and its power, had been proven in a way that surpassed even his wildest hopes. That volley had begun with his arrow: his Brush and his willpower carrying it into the heart of the enemy. He's grateful for his strength, grateful for the support of everyone who helped him reach that day, and that goal. His family's sin is paid for now, and now, he's also able to admit, and accept, the gratitude he feels for those who helped bring that to pass.

But what Leo can't get out of his mind is that the volley, the battle in whole,  _ended_  with no Priest's brush at all. Kaoru's brush, manufactured and purchased instead of crafted and honed by hand, had carried the most powerful magic of all. And in Kouga's hands, it had struck the final blow.

Leo wonders, in the days and weeks after Kouga's departure, as he watches over Kaoru and Gonza, whether that means that he was never truly Kouga's Priest at all. He knows it's an oversimplification, that sort of derivative wondering, but the thought compels him anyway. Kaoru sits at her canvas and paints, or stares into the blank fabric and doesn't paint, brush turning slowly over and over in her hands. Leo watches her, and wonders. 

He never expected to be able to relate so deeply to her. Privately, though of course he kept his thoughts to himself as much as he was capable, at least at first, he felt that her simplicity was unworthy of Garo. An outsider to the Makai world, she could never know the weight that they all carried, never appreciate the sacrifices they had been making, and that had been made for them, since they could walk.

But he hasn't felt that way in a long time. And since the realization that bloomed in his chest on the last day before Garo left - before  _Kouga_  left - Leo's felt, more and more, that he wants to forget that he ever did.

As the days stretch on and Gonza prays for Kouga's safe return, Leo prays for Kaoru. For her strength, and that her love and faith not waver. Whether or not he was ever truly Garo's Priest, Leo thinks, is an academic question. A curiosity, and a wonderment, and nothing more.

The now, and the future, are what matter now. And Leo's chosen a new duty, one that isn't anchored in his brother's past, but in Kaoru's future. 

 

  
*  
 _both_  
*

Neither Rei nor Leo expected things to be quite this easy. They're Makai - nothing comes easy, not in their experience. This, it had seemed to each of them, would be difficult at best. Doomed, and not even worth attempting, at worst.

But Kaoru has a way of making things easy. She even makes Kouga easy, which is to say that relating to Kouga, finding the smile under the severity, is easier when she's around. Which means that where they'd each expected stiff reticence, or outright resistance, instead they find themselves surprised by something that almost counts as  _request_.

Neither of them live full-time at the Saejima mansion. But they both have rooms set aside, rooms that are expressly theirs, and never occupied by others. The mansion is large enough. 

( _'There are guest rooms aplenty,'_  Gonza explains, in that effusive way that he sometimes answers your facial expression before you've even decided whether you're going to bother asking the question aloud.  _'There's no need to disturb the family's rooms, even if they're not often used, because what if you arrived on that particular night? I couldn't put you on the couch.'_)

Neither of them feel confident in calling themselves Kaoru's  _partner_ , or Kouga's  _partner_. Despite the stubborn, cute - oh so cute - way in which Kaoru insists that they ought to, stomping her foot when she's very cross with them and they're, in her words, being 'very stupid.' 

"You buy me flowers, you bring me new paintbrushes and paints, or sweets from bakeries in far-away towns, that you spent so much care bringing back without crushing the decoration on top. You sit by my bedside when I'm sick - you wrestle Kouga into bed when  _he's_  sick because you know he won't stay there on his own. You sit at the table with Gonza and us and you have a favorite cup in the cupboard and you know where we keep the spare hand towels. The Madogu all know you and the seals do too. You  _set_  half the seals! These are things boyfriends do! That's what you are, don't you see?"

Perhaps they'll get there someday, they say, to placate her. But not yet.

In this, they find their fourth similarity. They're both Makai, both dedicated to Kouga, both dedicated to Kaoru. And both quite satisfied, for now, with simply calling it that.

_"Dedication"_  can be a messy list of things he's done for Kaoru or Kouga, things that he feels repay the debts of things they've done for him. Dedication can keep on offering these things under the pretense of making things square, keeping it transactional. As the memory of Shizuka urges him to find a new happiness, a new sylvan peace for himself, "dedication" lets him keep pretending there's a ledger in which he's earning and giving favors, even if he never ever writes any of them down.

_"Dedication"_  can be the remnants of a sense of duty of rank, Priest to Knight, coupled with the tangled curiosities of innovation, and the excuse that the Saejima mansion has a workshop that's really excellent for practicing his Madogu creation. It can be the quiet responsibility, taken on voluntarily, to guard her until he returns; and then, upon his return, to continue on and guard them both, not because he has to but because he feels some sense of peace, some measure of satisfaction, from doing so and doing it well. As his memories of Goki haunt him like a restless ghost, and he wakes in the night reflexively reaching for his brush, snared in the lingering wisps of a dream that Sigma still looms, "dedication" can ground him, molding the world, now so terrifyingly open-ended and uncertain, into a pattern he can understand and a job he can strive to complete.

  
So for them, in these beginnings, "dedication" is what they feel, and what they show. 

At their own pace, they'll build upward from there.


End file.
